Inconsistency troubles hockey team

Lack of consistency has always been the bane of Indian hockey and it was evident once again in the match against Australia.

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Pargat Singh

New Delhi

October 9, 2010

UPDATED: October 9, 2010 13:30 IST

Lack of consistency has always been the bane of Indian hockey and it was evident once again in the match against Australia.

We played well in patches. The first 10 minutes were very poor and we conceded two soft goals due to the full press style of the Aussies. It shows that the defending was pretty ordinary.

Every team adopts a mixture of zonal and man-to-man marking systems. Our prowess in the latter is not so good so we have to rely on zonal marking, which requires good co-ordination between players.

The next 25 minutes were very good for India. Australians may have taken their foot off the pedal during that period which allowed India to make a comeback into the match.

However, we needed more than one goal during that period. We got five penalty corners but apart from the one effort which was brilliantly saved by the goalkeeper, the others had virtually no strength behind them.

The second half was totally dominated by Australia. I think we have a tendency to turn forwards into midfielders. This approach may work for European sides and Australia, because their tackling style remains uniform throughout. But the psyche among Indians is different.

The midfielders are content to just disturb the opposition players and not stop their progress. Also, positioning has to be different.

Here, I would like to draw notice to the performance of Sandeep Singh. He is in the team as the penalty corner expert. His recovery and tackling is not that good.

So, if he cannot score from penalty corners it puts an extra load on the other players.

I've advised him to work on other aspects of the game but he seems content to work on drag-flicks only.

Shivendra Singh and Sardara Singh had their moments but I was not too impressed with Rajpal Singh or Gurbaj Singh. Our finishing was also not good. As far as the performance of the team goes, I have not seen any change or improvement from the World Cup.

There also seems to be a lack of communication between the players. Apart from a few changes in personnel the squad remains the same.

The Aussies have come here with several newcomers. If the margin remains the same then one has to raise questions about the coaching system.

The match with Pakistan is crucial and I'm confident India can beat them. But before that we need to beat Scotland with a big margin as goal difference is likely to be a crucial factor in deciding the semi-final spots.

There is also a need for the team to focus on its fitness. We are playing with just one goalkeeper and the tactic is supposed to give up more options in rolling substitutions.

But it means that we are not very confident of lasting the full 70 minutes. Coach Jose Brasa may lament a lack of match practice but the players had been to a long European tour in the summer. The complaint seems like an excuse to me.

(The writer is a former India captain)

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